Interviews

Chris Taylor on Dungeon Siege II

From his early work with the groundbreaking RTS title Total Annihilation to his role-playing debut in the successful Dungeon Siege, Chris Taylor has been an outspoken advocate of PC games where tons of stuff blows up. We talked with the veteran game developer about what's going to make his upcoming sequel stand out.

GameSpy: How long have you been working on Dungeon Siege II? Did you start right after the first game, or did you take some time to stew over it for a while?

Chris Taylor: We did a lot of follow-up work on the original Dungeon Siege throughout the summer of 2002, and started to really ramp up on DSII later in the year, closer to September. Having said that, we did start experimenting on some new tools and engine tech earlier in the year.

GameSpy: How would you characterize people's response to the original game? Was it what you expected?

Chris Taylor: Overall the response was very positive, and most criticism was offered as a call for features in a sequel, which is always a positive way to gather and consider feedback. We had very high expectations, but in the end we accepted the fact that selling a million units as our first effort from a new studio was a good start.

GameSpy: The sequel is adding quite a bit to the equation. What new feature are you particularly excited about? What really defines the game in your eyes?

Chris Taylor: I am excited about a lot of different features, and how they all come together. As examples, when looking at the core game dynamics, I like the character "Powers" and the skill tree for players to explore with each member of their party. Overall, however, the entire game is a much deeper and more involved experience than we were able to focus on in the first game.

GameSpy: Talk more about character development! What else is new?

Chris Taylor: We have added two significant areas to the character development. First, a skill tree allows the player to add specific skills to each character, and as the character develops to higher levels, the ability to add really outrageous Powers. Powers are not available like regular spells, so they add an interesting new spin on the combat, meaning the player will need to make better decisions about when to use them and when to save them.

GameSpy: What's the deal with the packmule, anyways? People seemed to latch on to it during the first game.

Chris Taylor: I think it's just one of those things. It was a way to solve the inventory problem and put a cute spin on it. In the very original DSI design, we actually started with people like those guys in the first Indiana Jones movie, you know, the ones that get wiped out like red-shirts in Star Trek, but then we evolved the idea into the packmule and it stayed with us.

GameSpy: This time you're taking it a step further. On top of mules, we're promised "a number of exotic creatures with special abilities." You've got my interest: What should we expect from our sidekicks?

Chris Taylor: We call these exotic new creatures pets. You can buy these and develop them by feeding them different items you find in the world. For example, you can buy a Fire Elemental pet that is specifically geared towards parties who want to do a lot of fire damage and have a heavy fire resistance. By feeding the pet items, players will have some control over the way the creature's stats grow so that pets can be transformed to fit the players' needs.